1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light-source-driving control apparatus, an image forming apparatus, and a light-source driving method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, digital printers using electrophotographic process have been introduced to the field of production printing. In the field of production printing, there has been an increasing demand for improved image quality and reliability of electrophotographic images. To improve the image quality of electrophotographic images, reproductivity of thin lines and characters is demanded. Particularly, improvement of reproductivity of characters in minute sizes corresponding to 2 to 3 points, suppression of character thickening derived from the electrophotographic process, and the like are demanded.
Moreover, a digital printer in the field of production printing includes an optical scanner that enables multibeaming by applying a laser diode array (LDA) or a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) to a light source. This enables the optical scanner to form an electrostatic latent image at a resolution of 2400 dots per inch (dpi) or 4800 dpi, which is higher than that of an input image at a resolution of 1200 dpi or higher, thereby achieving the printing quality with a high image quality and a high speed.
For digital printers in the field of production printing, the optical scanner in which the image processing using high-resolution input image data and multibeaming are enabled as described above has been an effective means to improve the reproductivity of characters in a minute size (characters in a minute point size), to improve the reproductivity of a thin line, and the like.
However, according to a conventional image processing method, there is a problem that a thin line or a character in a minute size (character in a minute point size) cannot be reproduced clearly.
Furthermore, there is a demand for accurate measurement of a toner consumption amount when performing the processing to improve the reproductivity of a thin line and a character in a minute size (character in a minute point size) of an image.